TombRaiderFTW

Oooh! That's really exciting. Will you post a side-by-side video of a POV with old track versus a POV with the new track once the ride starts testing in the spring? Something similar was done with the Coney Island Cyclone a few years ago: I'm honestly curious if retracking that much of the ride will cause it to run faster.

They're not retracking the whole ride, if I remember the original post correctly. It's just getting IBox track in certain areas.

It seems like cloned rides get talked about a lot when it comes to predicting park plans, but the rides themselves are rarely discussed. What's your favorite ride that has a clone or near clone? It can come from Kings Island, or it can come from any other park. The world is your oyster! Remember, it doesn't have to have an exact replica. For instance, I'd consider Hurler at Carowinds to be a clone of Thunder Run at Kentucky Kingdom, even though the layouts aren't exactly the same. I'll start: I love the Coney Island Cyclone and the near-clones I've ridden. Viper at Six Flags Great America is a good ride, and Georgia Cyclone was one of my favorite coasters. They're fun, extremely compact layouts that often contain more airtime than what they look like they'd have from the ground.

Yo dawg, I heard you like RMC, so we put an RMC in our RMC so you can RMC while you RMC. Anyway, that's really interesting. It's odd to me that an RMC-designed ride would need to have its track replaced when Tremors, a CCI, has had Topper Track for close to a decade without issue. I've read reports in enthusiast circles that rides that were partially retracked with Topper Track don't hold up particularly well over time (Georgia Cyclone seemed like the most frequent culprit, if I remember correctly), but I guess I'd assumed that was because of the PTCs they often run. I wonder what this means for the future of launched RMCs, if launched RMCs even have a future after the issues with Lightning Rod.

Kangaroo, Bayurn Kurve, Volcano, and Paratrooper. I'm floored. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHI7m1SF9Y6/?igshid=kxfjoeb6d0to

My Eleventh Commandment senses are tingling.

It's been a couple years since I was last in it, but the Rivertown arcade near Beast had skeeball.

This is purely conjecture and is completely unsubstantiated: In retrospect, I feel like the ride's shaping looks kiiinda like CCI designed a layout and then RCCA got their hands on it and "dumbed it down" for their manufacturing capability and/or to remove laterals and airtime. Like, the post-lift swoop looks like a positive g-heavy version of that of Legend, the turn after the big drop looks like the second turn after Boss's first drop if a bunch of banking was clumsily added to remove laterals, the last turn does that CCI thing of banking during airtime, but it's like they went out of their way to remove the airtime or used the wrong friction factors or something. Y'know? Kinda in the same vein as Arrow Arrow-fying a B&M layout with Drachen Fire? Anyway, as someone who didn't ride Son of Beast till 2008, I only recently realized that the original trains had Flight of Fear-style lapbars. Y'know, ones that ratchet downward but have no upwards movement once they do. Pretty sure riding Son of Beast with those should have qualified as cruel and unusual punishment, because oh man. Kinda glad I missed that. Coincidentally, had CCI designed Son of Beast, it possibly would have opened with Gerstlauer trains, which is what it switched to later in life. Unless parks bought trains straight from PTC (or another manufacturer), CCIs in 2000 opened with Gerstlauer trains.

Like I said, it's because I'm assuming MFs are lighter than PTCs. If they weigh less, they're not going to cause as much stress.

^ Because I'm assuming they're lighter than Racer's PTCs.

Here's what I'm in favor of. Beast: Either a GCI retrack or a selective RMC Topper Track retracking in certain high-stress areas. Gently reprofile the ride to remove the trim brakes. The point isn't to turn the ride into something else; it's to make it so it doesn't keep stomping on the brakes around every turn. (And yes, I know, it's had trim brakes since opening. That doesn't mean I have to like them. ) I assume doing that would require the track to bank more quickly, so I therefore assume it'd need new trains (as it's my understanding/assumption that Beast's trains don't have an articulating axle at all.) I'd vote for new 3-bench PTCs. Racer: A GCI retrack and Millennium Flyers. I'm going to commit heresy by saying this, but I'd have GCI gently reprofile the hills to provide more airtime (and possibly provide more hills on the return run.) Racer is a great ride as-is, but I feel like, based on people's reports, that ride (and others) had more airtime before the trains were switched to individual ratcheting lapbars. Based on what enthusiasts claim, that change made the trains heavier, which both made the ride rougher and cut down on airtime. Woodstock Express: It's fine as-is? I don't feel like there's a pressing need to do anything to it. Mystic Timbers: Same as Woodstock Express. It's a basically brand-new GCI. It'd be weird and (in my opinion) unnecessary to RMC it.

^ Mm, that makes sense. A tangent, and I'm thinking out loud here: It's struck me as a bit odd that Kings Island (to my knowledge) never sends Racer's or Beast's trains to PTC in the winter to be refurbed. Like, the trains are perfectly serviceable come spring, but I feel like trains that go to PTC come out the other end feeling like new, and KI's don't. I can't imagine it's THAT expensive to have done--small independent parks do it. Maybe it costs more than it does to have the park do it in-house, or maybe the trains are of age that PTC won't touch them unless they're replaced with new 3-bench trains. I'm under the impression that KI modified Beast's trains from 4-bench cars to 3-bench cars in-house, and maybe PTC won't take on liability for them because of that? But that wouldn't explain Racer. And it's not a Cedar Fair policy or anything, because Blue Streak's trains go to PTC every winter.

^ Thank you so much for posting! It's really cool to get firsthand accounts of a time in the park's history that doesn't get talked about in detail often. As far as the spark wall goes, do you know if that's the same prop that was used in Massacre Manor when it was located in Coney Mall, towards the end of the house? I remember something similar being used there.

I question this, not because I doubt your industry knowledge (because I don't), but because of two things: 1. Both GCI and The Gravity Group offer that their respective trains can be put on existing coasters, and have been (e.g. Roller Coaster at Lagoon, Wildcat at Lake Compounce, Wildcat at Hersheypark, Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa, Hades at Mt. Olympus). Would GCI/GG have to build their trains wider to fit the existing gauge? Surely they aren't adjusting the track gauge. 2. I feel like some of the aforementioned examples (except Hades and maybe Gwazi) had their trains switched out quietly, without too much PR/Marketing buzz. I assume the financial justification was reduced maintenance. Do you feel like it's Cedar Fair's style to only make that kind of change if they can market it?

The live actors in Boo Blasters weren't able to get close enough to the cars to slap them, as I recall. They were actually on a rope that restricted how far out from the walls they could move. That was a neat gimmick, in my opinion. EDIT: The actors themselves, not the "being tethered to a wall" thing.

This doesn't ultimately matter that much, but did Cedar Fair coin the term "giga?" I definitely thought that was Intamin's term, and Cedar Fair took it and ran with it when coaster enthusiasts started applying it to non-Intamin coasters that are 300-399 feet tall. There are small plaques on Millennium Force's trains that say something along the lines of "Intamin Giga Coaster."

You monster.

I mean this in only a nice way: There's something incredibly hilarious to me about knowing how verbose @BB1 has been over the years and then seeing them write, "You do you." It's like watching someone dodge an out-of-control semi on foot, then immediately trip over a Roomba. Oh, and Orion.

I contest. ...I don't have anything to contest; I just wanna keep the thing going.

...The Eleventh Commandment would like a word. A very, very emphatic word.

Hagrid's was my 300th coaster, and I absolutely loved it. It's such a fun ride. I'm glad everyone was safe. Here's hoping they can get it up and running again soon.

Would you mind sharing some of what you've already found? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's never heard of this ride before and would enjoy learning about it. Not to mention that it might help jog some memories for folks who DO know something about it.

It just hit me that there IS a modern equivalent, kinda... It's Poseidon's Fury at Islands of Adventure, which I unabashedly love. It's cheesy as heck, but I love the concept of a show that you walk through, and I think it could very much be done in a better way that would be legitimately fun to experience for everyone. If Kings Island were to get something like that somehow, though, I don't know what it'd necessarily be themed to or where it'd go.

So like, I don't have that much sympathy if they had their phone out. But if they didn't, can you imagine much it would suck to have made it through the whole ride and lose your phone on the brake run?

I still think there's zero correlation between the Steel Vengeance posters and Cedar Fair's plans, because they're Easter eggs. The sheer number of Easter eggs in Orion's theming should be a sign that there's nothing to that besides winking at enthusiasts. But OP made me imagine a world where there's a Wonder Mountain (from Canada's Wonderland) replica located in Vortex's spot and a coaster located inside it, with occasional peeks (and peaks, heyyoooo) outside. And now I'm gonna be daydreaming about that for the rest of today. It'll never happen, but Kings Island having its own take on the Volcano: the Blast Coaster concept would be so freaking cool. It doesn't have to be Congo-themed like Kings Dominion; it could be mine-themed to fit Rivertown. It'd be neat to see that in the background behind the Eiffel Tower. (Emphasis mine.) This is such a minor thing, and I don't mean to specifically call you out, Zader, but I need to point this out for everyone's reference: It's IAAPA. It stands for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.